We’re expecting a cracker of a game tonight between Kings XI Punjab and CSK. Kings XI Punjab has a new captain R Ashwin, who has played all his life under MS Dhoni. This will be an interesting battle of wits between the master and the apprentice.
Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming said, “There is obviously a lot going on. The positive is we have two wins out of two. There haven’t been great performances but scrapping and fighting wins, which at the start of a tournament is more valuable.”
That’s true. CSK have been the very best team in the IPL so far and we really hope that they do not allow the off-field politics to affect them. They have the best batting line-up in the IPL, with match winners right down to no. 8.
Kings XI on the other hand, have a good opening batsman in KL Rahul, who they can depend on to give them a solid start. But after that, they have Yuvraj Singh, who is way past his prime. Then they have the likes of Karun Nair, Aaron Finch, and Marcus Stoinis, who are not exactly consistent players.
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CSK have lost Suresh Raina and Kedar Jadhav to injuries but they have decent replacements in Ambati Rayudu, M Vijay and the uncapped Delhi player Dhruv Shorey. Of course, they have Faf du Plessis too, who is a reliable batsman, but is still recovering from his injury.
The Teams
Kings XI Punjab: 1 KL Rahul (wk), 2 Mayank Agarwal, 3 Aaron Finch/David Miller, 4 Yuvraj Singh/Manoj Tiwary, 5 Karun Nair, 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Axar Patel, 8 R Ashwin (capt), 9 Andrew Tye, 10 Mohit Sharma, 11 Mujeeb Zadran
Chennai Super Kings: 1 Shane Watson, 2 Ambati Rayudu, 3 M Vijay/Dhruv Shorey, 4 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 5 Sam Billings, 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 Dwayne Bravo 8 Deepak Chahar, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Shardul Thakur, 11 Imran Tahir
Watch Kings XI Punjab play Chennai Super Kings tonight at 8 pm LIVE on Star Sports!
